What this solves
The kora around Chenresig peak is lined with mani piles and prayer flags. Most trekkers walk past and never touch them — but a few know that the colours are arranged deliberately, that adding a stone at the right pile is read as adding your own prayer, and that touching a broken prayer flag has a specific response. The wrong action doesn't get you shouted at, but it's noticed. This tool picks the colour → tells you what it means and where it goes. Picks the action → tells you the rule.
Pick a prayer-flag colour
Pick an action you want to do
How to read the result
Colour tells you what element it represents. The order blue-white-red-green-yellow is not random — it's read top-to-bottom as sky-wind-fire-water-earth, and that ordering matters for prayer-flag layout.
Where it goes — at home, on a chörten, on the kora string — depends on direction (windswept = all colours on a single string, stable = colour-by-colour by element).
Mantra is the canonical prayer associated with that colour. Many printed flags already carry it; adding a mantra yourself is for a personal string.
The Action section answers specific questions you'll have on the trail: how to add a stone, what to do when flags fade, whether to step over a string.
Limitations
FAQ
A: Top-to-bottom (sky to earth) when designing from scratch; left-to-right on a flag string with horizontal mounting. Pre-printed commercial flags almost always have it correct — check that yours do before adding your own.
A: Yes — small personal strings are common. Hang them on a chörten or on a tree along the kora path; ask before attaching to a shrine. Don\'t bring cheap printed flags with non-Buddhist imagery — it confuses the locals.
A: Pick them up; this is read as a respectful act. Burn them later with juniper if you can; otherwise place them in the next significant stone fire. Don\'t put them in your trash — they carry the mantra.
A: As wind wears them, the fibres fray and the printing reverses — a faded flag is read as "the prayer has been carried" (lungta, the windhorse). It is not a sign of neglect; it is the prayer having been transmitted.